This flagship session presents a first look at frontier AI developments, including a foundation model initiative. The showcase features applied systems, illustrating how frontier research translates into real-world impact. Joined by leaders across industry, infrastructure, and policy, the session highlights efforts to build end-to-end AI capabilities aligned with national priorities and broader relevance across emerging markets.

This session will feature student-led AI innovations addressing agriculture, livelihoods, and healthcare challenges. It will also include a rapid pitch by Cognitii, an AI startup advancing inclusive education.

This session will bring together diverse perspectives to explore how artificial intelligence can support sustainable, efficient, and climate-resilient agriculture. It will examine farmers' needs, the scientific and data challenges shaping AI-driven innovation, and the conditions required for impartial adoption and sovereignty. The discussion will bridge research and on-ground experience, highlighting practical applications, policy considerations, and future pathways to ensure AI solutions are inclusive, scalable, and relevant across different agricultural contexts

AI systems deployed across diverse cultural contexts often fail not because of technical limitations, but because they overlook social norms—the unwritten rules that shape human behaviour and decision-making. A recommendation system that succeeds in the United States may not resonate in India. A health chatbot that effectively engages American users may alienate Indian communities if it does not reflect local expectations and communication styles. This research-focused session convenes leading scholarship and applied work examining how culturally grounded design, local data partnerships, and participatory methods can improve AI performance across contexts. The emphasis is on embedding social understanding into model development to ensure effectiveness, legitimacy, and equitable impact across geographies.

AI will create more job opportunities but also make many existing jobs redundant. This will also require skilling and re-skilling of workers across the spectrum. The Panel Discussion will focus on short-term and long-term impact of AI on employment, both at the industry level (e.g., manufacturing, healthcare, automobile) and function level (e.g., HR, sales, supply chain). Moreover, the panel will identify steps to be taken to mitigate the risks by enhancing opportunities.

As AI transforms economies, developing strong human capital is increasingly important for workforce readiness. This session on "AI and the Future of Skilling" at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 will convene stakeholders from government, industry, and academia to discuss approaches to building an AI-ready workforce. The discussion will explore policy pathways, industry–academia collaboration, institutional AI readiness, future-focused skilling frameworks, and capacity-building across higher education to support employability, innovation, and broader adoption.

As AI adoption accelerates from isolated pilots to enterprise-wide integration, attention is shifting toward the creation of safe, trusted, and scalable ecosystems. This high-impact session examines practical implementation frameworks, governance architectures, and leadership strategies that reconcile rapid innovation with accountability and risk management. The emphasis is on operationalising responsible AI in ways that deliver measurable outcomes while safeguarding security, regulatory compliance, and long-term resilience. By convening policymakers, industry leaders, and technology experts, the session advances a systems-level understanding of how AI can be deployed at scale to drive productivity, institutional trust, and inclusive growth in an increasingly AI-driven global economy.

As digital technologies become central to education, linguistic accessibility emerges as a critical equity issue. This study examines how universities enable multilingual participation through UA. Drawing on Diffusion Innovation Theory (DIT) and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), this investigation reviews stakeholder experiences across universities in Asia and Europe using an innovative AI-assisted interview methodology. The findings also revealed critical gaps in universities' capacity to advance UN SDG 4/9/10/17 through inclusive digital infrastructure while presenting billions of dollars opportunity.

This leadership talk explores how AI is reshaping global employment and redefining future skills. It highlights the need for continuous, skills-based learning to build resilient, future-ready talent, and examines how education systems, workforce strategies, and policy frameworks must align. Through real-world examples, it showcases practical, collaborative approaches to accelerating AI readiness and closing critical skills gaps.

Grounded in evidence and lived realities, this initiative shares research and practice-based insights on approaches to improve the safety, inclusivity, and accessibility of digital spaces for women and marginalised groups. It outlines pathways towards ethical and inclusive digital futures, including actionable steps to strengthen transparency and protection. The session will also examine cross-sector collaboration across government, the private sector, academia, civil society, and international stakeholders.

This roundtable convenes policymakers, regulators, industry leaders, and global experts to shape trusted pathways for AI adoption. It examines how AI-enabled Quality Infrastructure can strengthen governance, accountability, and global acceptance. Through applied use cases and international perspectives, it highlights interoperable assurance frameworks that reduce compliance friction, boost MSME competitiveness, enable cross-border trade, and position India as a leader in responsible, innovation-driven AI growth for inclusive, secure, and scalable digital transformation.

This interactive session convenes leaders advancing AI advisory systems in agriculture to explore AGX AI as a growing community of practice focused on responsibly scaling AI for small-scale producers. Drawing on work in benchmarking, data corpus development, and model approaches, the session highlights emerging learning priorities, key collaboration needs, and opportunities for participants to help shape the next phase of shared learning across regions and sectors.

This session explores how artificial intelligence can drive measurable impact in improving road safety across India. It highlights data-driven approaches for understanding crash patterns, predicting risks and enabling proactive interventions. The discussion focuses on scalable AI applications that support safer mobility, training drivers and building data driven hyperlocal models, aligning with Vikshit Bharat 2047 vision of technology-led impact for public good.

AI has the potential to revolutionise India's judicial system by enhancing efficiency, transparency, and accessibility. It can enable predictive analytics for informed decision-making, automate case management, facilitate legal research, and support virtual courts, leading to faster dispute resolution, reduced backlog, and improved access to justice. This session will examine the transformative potential of AI, assess implementation challenges, and explore strategies for leveraging technology to create an efficient, transparent, and inclusive judicial system.

A rapid pitch by an exceptional AI startup, selected for its innovation and impact

This session will feature practical insights for AI founders navigating go-to-market challenges, followed by a rapid pitch spotlighting an innovative startup working on AI-validated 3D bio-printed disease models for Oral Submucous Fibrosis.

As India advances its climate and circularity ambitions, artificial intelligence is emerging as a critical enabler of low-carbon transformation. This panel will explore how AI can support decarbonisation across supply chains, infrastructure, and waste systems, while addressing challenges related to data, scale, and governance. Bringing together voices from civil society, industry, and the innovation ecosystem, the discussion will focus on practical pathways, policy enablers, and collaborative models to accelerate sustainable, system-level impact.

India has emerged as one of the world's largest adopters of AI, driven by scale of data, digital public infrastructure, and enterprise digitisation. However, the next strategic leap lies in transitioning from being predominantly an AI user to becoming a creator of indigenous AI systems. This session will examine what it takes for India to move decisively up the AI value chain: from deploying models to building home-grown AI solutions.

This session addresses the critical AI literacy gap limiting equitable access to AI knowledge across sectors and geographies. It will explore strategies to embed AI education across formal learning, workforce upskilling, and lifelong learning through training multipliers like teachers, government officials, and workforce development leaders. It will introduce the concept of the Universal AI Literacy Stack, and examine how multi-stakeholder collaboration among governments, industry, academia, and global partners can position countries as AI literacy leaders.

The main stage session will examine how participatory and ethical data pipelines can support a more inclusive AI ecosystem at national scale. Bringing together policymakers, technologists, researchers, and community representatives, the discussion will explore community-led data creation, evaluation, and model development. The session will highlight how fair compensation, local knowledge, and transparent governance can strengthen AI systems and inform responsible AI policy and practice in India and across the Global Majority.

This session explores how artificial intelligence is being applied to address context-specific challenges. It will highlight emerging applications and technology developments from research institutions and innovation ecosystems. The discussion will focus on the intersection of AI systems and local needs, examining how AI is influencing daily life and economic activity across different sectors.

This hands-on workshop aims to give an introduction to AI with live demonstrations starting from basics such as how it can be used in data analysis, making presentations and drafting documents. It also covers precautions one should take while using AI and dealing with proprietary, confidential or sensitive data. The session then moves to an entrepreneur perspective on challenges the ecosystem currently faces. The session will end with an open floor for questions.

This session explores how artificial intelligence, supported by digital public infrastructure, can strengthen agricultural systems and drive inclusive economic growth. It focuses on practical pathways to deliver trusted, data-driven advisory services, improve farmer decision-making, and enable scalable innovation through interoperable systems, partnerships, and governance frameworks that support real-world impact.

The session explores how Sovereign AI is becoming central to national security, covering its role in defense modernization, cyber resilience, space and hypersonic domains, internal security, and policing. It highlights how indigenous AI enhances threat detection, border management, and critical infrastructure protection, while also examining government–industry collaboration to build secure, resilient AI capabilities.

Bringing together governments, enterprises, and academic leaders, this session will spotlight how large-scale AI skilling and reskilling initiatives are being designed and delivered; the gaps emerging in AI talent supply; and what it takes to build a workforce that can adapt and thrive in an AI-driven economy. The discussion will surface practical lessons and scalable approaches for building inclusive, future-ready AI talent ecosystems.

The proliferation of generative AI and algorithmic content systems has created a new kind of risk for young users globally: Increasing exposure to manipulative design, hyper-personalized content, and AI-generated information at an overwhelming scale. Age-Appropriate Design (AAD) is a policy and design framework that helps develop safer, more accountable digital environments with the best interests of children in mind.

This session explores how artificial intelligence is being applied to address context-specific challenges. It will highlight emerging applications and technology developments from research institutions and innovation ecosystems. The discussion will focus on the intersection of AI systems and local needs, examining how AI is influencing daily life and economic activity across different sectors.

This session explores how artificial intelligence, supported by digital public infrastructure, can strengthen agricultural systems and drive inclusive economic growth. It focuses on practical pathways to deliver trusted, data-driven advisory services, improve farmer decision-making, and enable scalable innovation through interoperable systems, partnerships, and governance frameworks that support real-world impact.

This hands-on workshop aims to give an introduction to AI with live demonstrations starting from basics such as how it can be used in data analysis, making presentations and drafting documents. It also covers precautions one should take while using AI and dealing with proprietary, confidential or sensitive data. The session then moves to an entrepreneur perspective on challenges the ecosystem currently faces. The session will end with an open floor for questions.

There is growing recognition that Global South contexts require governance models that go beyond static regulation. These models must retain regulatory rigor while enabling dynamic assessment, contextual evidence generation, and socio-technical considerations that reflect local priorities, capacities, and values. Core Proposition: A Two-Track Adaptive Governance Model This panel proposes a pragmatic, two-track governance approach for AI in health

A rapid pitch by an exceptional AI startup, selected for its innovation and impact

This session will feature a discussion on translating cutting-edge research into scalable, real-world impact across health, agriculture, and fintech. It will also include a rapid pitch spotlighting an AI-powered product development platform driving innovation from lab to market.

This session examines how India can build a responsible AI ecosystem rooted in trust, safety, and public value. It focuses on policy frameworks, governance mechanisms, and accountability practices that balance innovation with societal impact. Emphasizing inclusivity, transparency, and national priorities, the discussion explores how responsible AI for Bharat can strengthen public institutions, safeguard citizens, and position India as a global leader in ethical and people-centric AI development.

This session will examine how responsible AI can advance health equity by improving access to trusted medical knowledge, clinical decision support, and workforce capacity. Bringing together policymakers, healthcare leaders, clinicians, and industry experts, the discussion will focus on trust, transparency, and governance in health AI. The panel will explore how evidence-based, explainable AI systems can be deployed safely and at scale to strengthen health systems and improve outcomes, particularly in emerging and resource-constrained settings.

This session brings together distinguished thought leaders from industry, academia, and the startup ecosystem to explore how AI sustainability can transform from an abstract ESG aspiration into a measurable engineering discipline. The session will draw out practical insights, frameworks, and actionable guidance that practitioners worldwide can immediately apply. The questions asked will elicit specific expertise from panellists while building a cohesive narrative.

A rapid pitch by an exceptional AI startup, selected for its innovation and impact

How can Responsible AI be implemented across the data and AI lifecycle? This seems to be a distant dream across the world, with very limited unified approach to legal, technical, governance and operational requirements. This session builds on top of the unified Techno-legal framework published by the Indian Office of PSA, brings together researchers, policy makers, framework developers, technology platforms and enterprises, to understand the challenges, opportunities and demonstrates a reference implementation of Responsible AI across Data & AI lifecycle.

This session would explore the potential of JAN AI to democratise India's artificial intelligence landscape and bridge digital divides. Discover frameworks for ensuring equitable AI access, culturally responsive design, and inclusive development practices. Learn how stakeholders can collaborate to build AI systems that serve all Indians, not just privileged segments, creating pathways for all communities to participate in and benefit from India's technological transformation

This session will include presentations by AI policymakers from multiple countries and a discussion to identify shared interests that can inform the development of collaboration roadmaps. Participants will explore cooperation opportunities related to infrastructure pooling, data sharing, cross-border regulatory sandboxes, regulatory harmonisation and mutual recognition, skills programmes, joint AI incident monitoring, and collaborative audit mechanisms.

This session examines how AI can be deployed at scale across schools and higher education institutions in India. It explores government-led adoption, impacts on learning and pedagogy, and pathways to ensure inclusive AI literacy for students and educators in a rapidly evolving education ecosystem.

AI risks being shaped by a concentrated few, leaving the Global South as consumers rather than co-creators. When data, compute, foundational models, and distribution are controlled by a handful of corporations, innovation suffers. A competitive, open source AI stack, built on affordable compute, local cloud options, and locally trained models, is essential to fostering innovation. This panel explores AI resource distribution, barriers facing Global South innovators, and remedies through openness, competition, and South–South cooperation.

This session will dissect the transition of artificial intelligence from experimental "sandboxes" to the bedrock of national public health infrastructure. The discussion will explore how the synergy between RailTel's expansive digital footprint and Qure.ai's clinical intelligence is creating a sovereign health surveillance grid.

This session will be a moderated panel with Q&A, featuring experts in national language missions, Voice AI, and equitable tech investment across India and developing economies as Africa. The discussion focuses on building language AI infrastructure at population scale, sharing experiences, and setting a forward with themes like open infrastructure and South-South cooperation.

This workshop examines how equitable access to high-quality data can enable inclusive and responsible AI development, particularly in emerging economies. It brings together experts to explore data infrastructure, governance frameworks, and market incentives that support scalable data ecosystems. Through focused discussions on technical models, market design, and regulation, the session aims to generate practical recommendations for reducing data access barriers, improving interoperability, and ensuring that AI development benefits diverse communities, sectors, and local contexts.

This session explores how agentic AI is reshaping digital commerce through autonomous decision-making, trusted identities, and tokenized value exchange. Industry leaders in applied AI will discuss emerging architectures for secure, explainable agents, the evolution of trust and accountability, and the role of tokens in coordinating economic activity. Moderated by an academic expert, the conversation bridges research and practice, examining risks, governance, and opportunities that will define the AI-driven commerce economy over the coming decade globally

The session will bring together attendees from the Indian government, data security professionals, Global South policy experts, and technical researchers in hardware and AI security. The panellists will draw on their research-talent network and event convening experience, and present live demos and examples of their hardware-enabled verification product.

This session spotlights how "right-sized" and responsible AI-enabled workflows can strengthen disaster risk reduction (DRR) by enabling fast, inclusive capture of potential risks, losses and needs, trusted verification, and improved decision-making for responders.

This session will feature a discussion on advancing inclusive health and social impact through strategic partnerships and innovation. It will also include a rapid pitch by Fifth Sense, showcasing AI-powered sign language translation gloves designed to enhance accessibility and communication.

A rapid pitch by an exceptional AI startup, selected for its innovation and impact

This session will feature practical insights on navigating investor expectations, structuring capital, and building clarity in fundraising conversations. It will also include a rapid pitch by NariRaksha.AI, showcasing AI-driven solutions for harassment prevention and strengthening digital trust.

LLM development is critical to the public interest in the Global South, yet decisions about their development and use remain concentrated in the Global North. This workshop brings together global civil society, NLP researchers, and technologists to inform responsible LLM development globally. The AI Summit hosted in India this year offers a timely opportunity to convene groups that often work in isolation and to advance questions of language access and global AI governance, including systems.

India's electronics hardware sector is increasingly focusing on AI-powered design and manufacturing innovations, strategic alignment of AI hardware with PLI 2.0 incentives, seamless integration of AI into MSME business ecosystems, and comprehensive talent development/upskilling programs. This session will bring together industry leaders, government policymakers, and academia to address issues of AI scalability, ethics, and inclusivity—unleashing demographic advantages and policy momentum for resilient, globally competitive AI infrastructure and sustainable growth.

This session brings together policy leaders, technologists, and development partners to explore how AI and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) can strengthen agriculture across India and the Global South. It will showcase real-world implementations from Maharashtra, ATI Ethiopia, and other initiatives, highlighting improved farmer access to advisories, inputs, finance, and markets. The discussion will demonstrate how open, collaborative digital approaches can accelerate agricultural transformation, enhance food security, and build climate resilience.

When floods strike, clinics overflow, EMIs slip, or civic systems fail, help exists behind apps, portals, and English menus. For millions, that help is unreachable. This session explores Multilingual Voice-AI Agents for crisis response, reaching people by phone, in their language, handling real tasks in real time. This involves no downloads and forms - just voice that works when systems don't, especially for underserved and vulnerable communities.

This session explores the challenges and opportunities facing "middle powers" as they navigate complex geopolitical, economic, and technical choices in building AI capabilities. It will examine tradeoffs through case studies and practical examples, covering sovereign and open-source AI, compute infrastructure, DPI, and risks of dependency. The aim is to identify empirically grounded pathways that enable countries to pursue a "third way" toward technological autonomy in a challenging global environment.

Emerging technologies are reshaping global power, making digital governance a diplomatic priority. This session introduces futures literacy as a vital tool for proactive policymaking. By integrating complementary perspectives from India and Germany the panel demonstrates how to navigate complexity. Participants will explore how these diverse methodologies can help identify policy space for informed decision making, ensuring a resilient and tech-informed approach to international digital policy and diplomacy.

This session will advance a regional dialogue on women in artificial intelligence across South Asia, focusing on representation, equity, and empowerment. The session will examine implications for women's education, skills development, and work, including risks of bias and exclusion. The discussion will outline actionable pathways for gender-inclusive, people-centered AI

This session will present an AI stack for public services to enable inclusive growth, from India to the world. The session includes short keynotes by panellists, followed by a moderated discussion on implementation challenges, interoperability, and collaboration across governments, technologists, and civil society.

This panel explores emerging innovations from India's AI Centres of Excellence across Health, Education, Agriculture, and Sustainable Cities. Speakers will examine practical, high-impact AI systems—spanning service delivery, decision support, and public infrastructure—that can move from pilots to large-scale deployment. The discussion will focus on measurable outcomes, data and governance foundations, and pathways for responsible adoption in government and partner ecosystems. The session will highlight examples, implementation lessons, and approaches to scaling.

This session explores how India is leveraging AI to deliver inclusive, scalable solutions to national and global challenges. It focuses on synergies among industry, academia, and government to support startups and strengthen innovation ecosystems. Bringing together policymakers, industry leaders, startups, academia, and international institutions, the discussion highlights public-private collaboration, examines how global institutions empower innovation through industry and academic support, and concludes with policy recommendations to enable wider startup-led innovation and advance AI for good.

Rapid AI advances are reshaping economies, but adoption requires robust digital foundations. This session brings together policymakers, practitioners, and development partners to explore how Asia-Pacific countries can build scalable, secure AI infrastructure aligned with their development priorities. Discussions will cover what "AI-ready" means at different development stages, the government's role in creating enabling policies and systems, sustainable financing models combining public and private capital, and how startups can innovate effectively on these foundations.

The India AI Impact Buildathon, under the India AI Impact Summit 2026, is a national-level initiative aimed at democratizing AI education and fostering AI solutions for social good, with a strong focus on reducing digital frauds and cyber scams. Through free AI learning resources and hands-on innovation, over 35,000 participants build responsible, impact-driven solutions, culminating in a national finale showcasing top AI innovators.

AI for Industries: Resilience, Innovation, Efficiency explores how artificial intelligence can accelerate India's industrial transformation through global collaboration and proven best practices. As part of the India AI Action Summit, this session brings together international expertise in applied AI, industrial digitisation, and trusted technologies with Indian startups delivering scalable impact in healthcare and livelihoods. The session will provide insights on innovation pathways, responsible deployment, governance, and real-world outcomes through cross-border knowledge exchange that shape the future of industries.

A rapid pitch by an exceptional AI startup, selected for its innovation and impact

This flagship session bringing together government, industry, academia, youth and multilateral agencies to translate child-centred AI principles into action. Aligned with existing frameworks, the session will examine safety, inclusion, ethics, and governance, showcase practical tools and case studies, amplify youth perspectives, and conclude with concrete commitments, next steps, and a roadmap for sustained collaboration on Responsible AI for children in India.

Women globally are poised to lead the AI revolution and shape economic and social growth through innovation, leadership and ethical AI development. This panel topic explores the challenges and opportunities as women navigate the shift from supporting roles evolving from consumers of AI to becoming the primary architects and entrepreneurs behind innovative AI solutions.

This panel examines how Artificial Intelligence is reshaping labour markets, from job creation and skill transitions to education and policy responses. Bringing together government, research, industry, and academia, the discussion explores AI-enabled employment platforms, emerging skill demands, workforce strategies, and how education systems can evolve to prepare workers for an AI-driven economy.

This panel will explore how innovation and regulation can evolve together as artificial intelligence advances. It will examine trust, transparency, accountability, and responsible development, highlighting how these principles may encourage sustainable, human-centric AI adoption within an increasingly interconnected ecosystem.

As Artificial Intelligence increasingly influences lawmaking, governance, and public life, Members of Parliament face both new opportunities and heightened risks. From the use of AI in policymaking and constituency engagement to challenges posed by deepfakes, misinformation, and online harassment, this session will focus on how legislators can build digital readiness, strengthen institutional safeguards, and exercise responsible public leadership in the AI era.

BioAI is a key enabler of initiatives that integrate artificial intelligence with biology to address complex research challenges through data-driven, cutting-edge, and multidisciplinary approaches. This integration is expected to drive significant advances in drug discovery, genomics and precision medicine, imaging and diagnostics, strain engineering for industrial-scale production of biomaterials and bioproducts, and agricultural innovation. The session highlights the BioAI initiative through a keynote address followed by an expert panel discussion.

The session on Impact of AI in Audit highlights key initiatives, emerging practices, and strategic priorities for integrating artificial intelligence in public auditing. It presents insights on how AI can enhance audit planning, execution, and reporting through advanced data analytics and intelligent tools. The discussions emphasize multi-stakeholder collaboration and promote dialogue on the responsible, ethical, and context-specific use of AI, underscoring its potential to strengthen transparency, efficiency, and trust in public financial accountability systems.

Global policy discourse largely treats AI and DPI separately. AI discussions focus on model safety, compute governance, workforce displacement. DPI conversations center on digital identity, digital payment, data exchange. AI-DPI convergence can create exponential value and new risk categories. While this convergence accelerates, critical questions remain: How can DPI lower barriers for local AI innovation while preventing new forms of exclusion? How can responsible AI systems be built in resource-constrained environments using DPI approaches?

This session will host a high-level panel at the AI Impact Summit 2026 to examine what works in AI deployments in Agriculture while being informed by a Multi-Country Landscape Study across Low- and Middle-Income Countries. The panel integrates Evidence, Practice, and Policy, highlighting India's Saagu Baagu system, and addresses Bias, Digital Exclusion, and Responsible Governance. It will frame AI for Agriculture as one of Development and Public and will shed light on challenges and deliver lessons for Responsible Scaling for Smallholders and inclusive agricultural innovation globally.

As AI becomes central to agriculture, health, social protection, and digital public infrastructure, safety and inclusion extend beyond technical reliability to equity, agency, deception, and power imbalances. This session positions AI safety as essential to sustainable development in the Global South, ensuring technologies respect local contexts and reduce inequality. Participants will examine equity, deception and manipulation risks, and how Global South perspectives can shape proactive, globally relevant AI safety frameworks before large-scale deployment begins worldwide.

This session will feature a design-led exploration of why AI startups fail and how founders can de-risk growth using three practical lenses. It will also include a rapid pitch spotlighting a cutting-edge startup building the next generation of autonomous operations.

This session will explore the Summit's pillar on Democratising AI Resources, exploring the distribution of institutional capacity, legal safeguards, and governance frameworks alongside access to computational infrastructure and datasets. The dialogue will examine how broader access to AI is bolstered by transparent rule-making processes and accountable decision-making. The session will also investigate the development of inclusive regulatory institutions designed to promote shared technological opportunities across countries.

This session explores how as AI capabilities in cybersecurity evolve, risk management and testing frameworks are essential to enhance security while addressing emerging threats. Many leading AI firms have signed on to the Frontier AI Safety Commitments, yet questions remain about operationalizing AI-cyber risk management and testing approaches. Speakers from industry, civil society, and academia will explore current offensive cyber threats from AI, evaluation methods and benchmarks, and best practices for mitigating AI-driven cyber risks.

This panel will examine the use of artificial intelligence in social welfare delivery and its implications for accuracy, fairness, and accountability. It will explore risks linked to automated decision making, the importance of human oversight, and ways to reduce unintended negative outcomes to beneficiaries. The discussion will focus on monitoring and evaluation approaches that help governments assess impact, costs, and outcomes, and identify safeguards to ensure transparent, equitable, and effective welfare programmes.

AI is scaling rapidly across products and borders, yet regulation and transparency remain uncertain—particularly for smaller organizations with limited governance capacity. This session examines the minimum requirements for effective AI governance bodies and how ethical decision-making structures can function across organizations of different sizes. Through discussion and reflection, the session aims to surface shared principles, key challenges, and practical next steps to support responsible, transparent, and globally relevant AI governance.

How can Public-Interest AI induce a meaningful and inclusive interaction between policy and society to achieve the vision of Viksit Bharat@2047?

As AI use cases expand across the social sector, robust evaluation systems are critical to safeguard vulnerable users, improve system performance, and ensure meaningful positive impact. This session addresses the growing need to support development leaders in designing cost-effective AI evaluation pipelines that enhance benefits while minimizing potential harm. It will draw on culturally responsive and context-specific evaluation approaches aimed at improving the safety and reliability of LLMs for diverse, multilingual communities.

Adolescents are engaging with AI more frequently and in increasingly emotional ways during a critical developmental stage that requires specific safeguards, especially in the presence of anthropomorphic design. This panel introduces an international multistakeholder coalition leading global efforts on this issue. It presents early findings from this transdisciplinary initiative, grounded in neuroscience and AI safety research, and highlights the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders in creating beneficial, child-centered, and safe AI

Realizing global precision medicine requires infrastructure enabling countries to collaborate on AI-driven genomics. Yet data sovereignty rules prevent collective use of genomic datasets, widening the Global AI Divide. Data visitation—where algorithms travel securely to data rather than data moving to researchers—offers a path forward. This workshop convenes policymakers, technologists, and public health leaders to explore governance, standards, and technologies, showcasing how emerging tools translate policy into deployable infrastructure built with the Global South.

Context-setting on AI sovereignty, global concentration of AI power and why open source AI are central to equitable and sustainable AI development. This panel positions the discussion within the Summit's broader objectives and India's leadership in digital public infrastructure.

This session introduces NegotiateCOP, an open AI tool as a digital public good to support international negotiators with the analysis of country positions at COP30. Through a live demonstration and practical insights, the session explores how open AI tools can be used in multilateral negotiations enabling more inclusive, equitable, and evidence-based international cooperation.

Infrastructure and construction is one of the world's largest industries. It shapes economic development, climate outcomes, and societal well-being, yet remain among the least digitized and least capable of learning from their own history. Critical decisions affecting trillions of dollars are still made with fragmented data and experience trapped in individual silos, limiting collective judgment. This session explores cognitive infrastructure and vertical AI as tools to advance critical thinking...

As opposed to theoretical concepts and ideas, this session will share practical insights that are already driving change in education. Panellists will demonstrate how AI can move from pilot to adoption in low- and middle-income countries in under a year.

In order for AI infrsatructure not to be locked into a few vendors, open source cloud native tools could be more widely explored. This is a first step towards building production AI systems on one's own terms keeping data sovereign, optimising expensive GPUs and serving models more efficiently. This session will explore the use of these tools and include real lessons from industry deployment.

A rapid pitch by an exceptional AI startup, selected for its innovation and impact

This session will feature a candid conversation on reshaping the startup ecosystem through leadership, resilience, and inclusive innovation. It will also include a rapid pitch by Baeru, an AI-first waste intelligence layer transforming how waste is tracked, managed, and optimized.

A rapid pitch by an exceptional AI startup, selected for its innovation and impact

The AI & Arthik Shakti session will co-develop an action blueprint for women-led prosperity through AI. The programme will feature keynote addresses and a panel discussion titled "The Prosperity Algorithm: AI's Role in Women's Economic Agency", focusing on inclusive growth, digital empowerment, and measurable pathways to sustainable prosperity across India and the Global South. The session aims to translate dialogue into actionable strategies that strengthen women's economic participation in AI-driven economies.

As artificial intelligence (AI) adoption in health accelerates, its public health impact depends on governance, institutional capacity, and effective public–private sector collaboration. This panel examines how AI is being moved from pilots to scale, highlighting implementation experiences, procurement and integration challenges, and sustainability beyond proof-of-concept. Drawing on public and private sector perspectives, the discussion focuses on enabling procurement, ecosystems and practical pathways for responsible, scalable AI deployment in public health systems.

In the digital field, Japan and India have identified opportunities for cooperation and strengthened engagement. This session will bring together AI companies from both countries for a panel discussion. Participants will gain insights into AI development approaches in Japan and India, as well as potential areas for collaboration in AI development.

This high level Panel Discussion convening at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 will discuss the proposed Asia Pacific Centre for Artificial Intelligence. The session features a short panel discussion followed by an open audience dialogue to gather practical inputs on cross border collaboration, market expansion, adoption pathways, and governance priorities that can enable innovation while strengthening trust and accountability across the region.

This panel explores how, as BFSI systems expand through digital onboarding, payments, and credit, trust can no longer rely on manual oversight or fragmented rule-based controls. It examines AI as a core trust infrastructure—enabling real-time fraud prevention, advanced risk intelligence, and resilient cross-border controls—while ensuring explainability, privacy, auditability, and fairness. The discussion also highlights how AI-driven trust rails reduce friction and unlock financial inclusion at scale for underserved citizens and MSMEs.

AI systems increasingly shape social, economic, and political life, raising concerns about safety, transparency, and trust. Global efforts recognise that trustworthy AI requires more than technical safeguards; it demands ethical foundations, strong governance, and awareness of societal risks. This session brings together leaders from ethics, government, multilateral institutions, and peace research to examine how Safe and Trusted AI can be operationalised through inclusive, evidence-based approaches that advance responsible, globally aligned AI governance and policy practice.

This session will feature a live demonstration of the National Data Analytics Platform, showcasing how public data can be leveraged to drive research, policymaking, and innovation. It will also include a rapid pitch spotlighting an exceptional AI startup selected for its innovation and impact.

The India AI Readiness Assessment Methodology (RAM) Report will be launched at the AI Impact Summit on 16 February, from 3:30–4:25 PM in Room 15, Bharat Mandapam. Developed by UNESCO in partnership with the IndiaAI Mission and implemented by Ikigai Law, the report examines India's current ethical AI landscape and preparedness, and offers actionable recommendations. The event will feature a keynote by Dr. Ajay Kumar Sood, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India.

The future of AI must consider how well it serves those furthest from the digital frontier. With vast linguistic, cultural, and geographic diversity, solutions must be designed for real-world complexity. This panel brings together diverse ecosystem actors to share lessons on moving from innovation to outcomes—mobilising philanthropy, government, and mission-driven organisations to de-risk deployment, build infrastructure, shape standards, and chart a practical roadmap for inclusive, human-centred AI in Bharat.

As artificial intelligence (AI) adoption in health accelerates, its public health impact depends on governance, institutional capacity, and effective public–private sector collaboration. This panel examines how AI is being moved from pilots to scale, highlighting implementation experiences, procurement and integration challenges, and sustainability beyond proof-of-concept. Drawing on public and private sector perspectives, the discussion focuses on enabling procurement, ecosystems and practical pathways for responsible, scalable AI deployment in public health systems.

This panel convenes senior leaders from the media and publishing ecosystem, global experts, and representatives from leading international consulting firms to examine how AI is reshaping the future of news. Designed as a leadership-level discussion, it will explore responsible AI integration across editorial, business, and operations, highlighting opportunities for innovation, efficiency, and audience engagement. The session will also address evolving economic models, trust, transparency, safety, and long-term sustainability, offering strategic clarity and actionable insights.

The India AI Readiness Assessment Methodology (RAM) Report will be launched at the AI Impact Summit on 16 February, from 3:30–4:25 PM in Room 15, Bharat Mandapam. Developed by UNESCO in partnership with the IndiaAI Mission and implemented by Ikigai Law, the report examines India's current ethical AI landscape and preparedness, and offers actionable recommendations. The event will feature a keynote by Dr. Ajay Kumar Sood, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India.

The AI & Arthik Shakti session will co-develop an action blueprint for women-led prosperity through AI. The programme will feature keynote addresses and a panel discussion titled "The Prosperity Algorithm: AI's Role in Women's Economic Agency", focusing on inclusive growth, digital empowerment, and measurable pathways to sustainable prosperity across India and the Global South. The session aims to translate dialogue into actionable strategies that strengthen women's economic participation in AI-driven economies.

India's tech-enabled services sector—spanning IT, BPO, and global capability centres (GCCs)—plays a significant role in economic activity and employment. AI is reshaping this industry by influencing service economics, delivery models, and talent structures. As AI systems advance towards greater autonomy, this session will explore how India can navigate this transition to support higher-value job creation and strengthen its position in the global services economy.

This panel explores how, as BFSI systems expand through digital onboarding, payments, and credit, trust can no longer rely on manual oversight or fragmented rule-based controls. It examines AI as a core trust infrastructure—enabling real-time fraud prevention, advanced risk intelligence, and resilient cross-border controls—while ensuring explainability, privacy, auditability, and fairness. The discussion also highlights how AI-driven trust rails reduce friction and unlock financial inclusion at scale for underserved citizens and MSMEs.

A rapid pitch by an exceptional AI startup, selected for its innovation and impact

A rapid pitch by an exceptional AI startup, selected for its innovation and impact

This session will feature a forward-looking discussion on building transformative technologies that challenge conventional models and unlock frontier innovation. It will spotlight bold approaches across healthtech and AI, highlighting how mission-driven ventures are reshaping industries beyond routine thinking.

The world is entering a decisive decade for energy transition, with rapid solar growth and complex grids driving the need for AI-enabled digitalisation. India's experience, including the India Energy Stack, shows how scalable, inclusive digital public infrastructure can move from pilots to impact. Building on this the Ministry of Power, REC Ltd. and ISA are convening this session to advance a Global Mission on AI for Energy through collaboration and citizen-centric power systems.

This session examines how countries can design and scale high-quality, context-appropriate AI tools for education. It highlights key risks and opportunities, with use cases from Africa and India, and discusses quality assurance across the AI lifecycle. The panellists will share lessons from testing and deploying AI in classrooms and public services, and present insights on integrating AI into government systems, conditions required to scale AI safely and coherently.

This panel discussion will explore why multilingual safety is essential for inclusive AI governance, addressing emerging risks such as jailbreaking in low-resource languages, and the current lack of culturally grounded benchmarks and evaluation frameworks. Participants will examine the challenges of building culturally sensitive safety datasets and ensuring that AI models can be developed, evaluated, and deployed safely across diverse linguistic and socio-cultural contexts, and highlight opportunities for collaborative research and open evaluation infrastructure.

This session explores how AI can strengthen open public data systems to deliver greater social and economic value. The session explores the policy, institutional, and technical conditions needed for AI-ready data ecosystems, highlighting the role of National Statistical Offices, transparency, and collaboration in building trust, while simultaneously improving data quality.

The session explores a powerful convergence of artificial intelligence and human creativity in shaping the future workforce. This high-impact panel brings together leaders from industry, government, and the creative economy to discuss how AI is transforming design, media, storytelling, and innovation. The session highlights future-ready skills, national skilling pathways, and collaborative initiatives enabling India's intelligent and creative economy.

AI is reshaping how sovereignty is understood for individuals, communities, and nations. While governments played a major role in building the early internet, private actors have also shaped the digital economy. Today, AI development is largely led by the private sector, raising questions about how to align innovation with broader societal goals. This panel will explore how to build trustworthy infrastructure through public-private alignment and governance approaches that prioritize users and accountability. Key takeaways will be distilled across international policy platforms.

Aligned with the 'Planet' sutra, this event involves a panel discussion to explore how industry practices for data centres and policy frameworks can advance the sustainability of AI infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. The event will commence with a brief presentation on the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Accord (SDIA), a unique APAC-level industry initiative to advance digital infrastructure sustainability through voluntary targets covering four areas- energy efficiency, clean energy use, water use, and circular economy.

This workshop will introduce a data and AI platform for cooperation and discuss its vision and early applications. It will examine how governments, implementing agencies, and innovators can collaborate to use AI in combination with data and contextual insights. Participants will explore the need for interoperable and trusted infrastructure to support AI agents, and consider how such systems can strengthen the effectiveness of development-related initiatives.

AI's growing role in economies and institutions makes its alignment with ESG priorities critical. While AI can strengthen climate monitoring, risk management, governance, transparency, and accountability, poorly governed use may amplify bias, inequality, and mistrust. This panel frames AI as a leadership and governance challenge, not just a technology, examining responsible, ethical, and policy-aligned deployment. It explores how AI can deliver inclusive, transparent, measurable ESG outcomes, especially for emerging economies and the Global South contexts.

Artificial intelligence is transforming how science is conducted, governed, and funded, outpacing many national research systems. Marking the launch of the International Science Council's report Preparing National Research Ecosystems for AI, this session draws on 26 country case studies, especially from low- and middle-income contexts. Panelists will examine governance, data and compute access, workforce skills, and policy alignment, highlighting shared challenges, good practices, and the need for international cooperation to ensure AI advances science equitably.

This session explores how data governance shapes ethical, transparent, and rights-respecting AI systems used by governments and private actors. It shares early findings from a research project examining the legal and ethical use of publicly accessible data in AI training, with insights from multiple global contexts. Through interactive discussion, the session invites audience perspectives to deepen understanding of emerging challenges and help inform future research directions and policy approaches for responsible, inclusive AI development.

This session blends film, dialogue, and live demonstration to explore who shapes AI and on whose terms. Featuring a screening of 'Humans in the Loop', a moderated panel aligned with the India AI Impact Summit's chakra framework, and a demo of a Gender Bias Benchmarking tool, the session centers women's inclusion, data workers' visibility, local context, and dignified digital work as pillars of responsible AI.

This session will feature an overview of the Frontier Tech Hub Repository, highlighting how it curates and connects breakthrough innovations across emerging technologies. It will also include a rapid pitch spotlighting an exceptional AI startup selected for its innovation and impact.

This session brings together leading stakeholders from governments, civil society and academia to advance responsible AI for agriculture. The session features inaugural addresses, keynote insights and cross-border panels on scaling AI for public good. With participation from policymakers, researchers, investors and innovators, the program highlights international collaboration, startup recognition and actionable dialogue to strengthen inclusive, impact-driven AI ecosystems for sustainable agricultural development.

This session will gather policymakers and AI practitioners from India and Africa to discuss accessibility of public data, local language LLM training and development requirements, and sustainable financing. The goal is to recommend a governance framework for making public broadcasting data available for public AI research securely. The discussion will focus on regulatory frameworks, practical data use for local language AI, and sustainable funding.

AI for Power – Accelerating the Clean Energy Transition explores how artificial intelligence can fast-track India's shift to resilient, low-carbon electricity systems. With power driving most global emissions, the session spotlights frontier pilots and scalable innovations across renewable integration, grid optimisation, predictive maintenance and demand forecasting. Policymakers, utilities, innovators and investors will examine pathways to deploy responsible AI at scale - positioning India and the Global South as leaders in climate-positive digital infrastructure.

Generation AI @ 2047 is a high-impact, experience-led session aligned with India's focus on inclusive and scalable AI. Moving beyond policy intent, it explores how AI shows up at India's last mile - shaping outcomes for farmers, classrooms, and first-time job seekers. Hosted in Hindi, it spotlights a state-level AI skilling initiative, offering practical, replicable insights for building an inclusive, AI-ready workforce toward a Viksit Bharat by 2047.

This panel discussion is part of the India-AI Impact Summit 2026 which seeks to highlight the demonstrable impact and tangible progress in global AI cooperation. The objective of the panel is to create common principles and guidance for data as DPI that support openness, accountability, and public value in the age of AI, and work towards concrete impact.

AI at scale requires infrastructure that converts promise into real impact. This session explores shared compute, efficient architectures, and hybrid cloud-to-edge strategies, comparing frontier model training with deployment of right-sized models for citizens, SMEs, and public systems. Anchored in People, Planet, and Progress, we examine access, affordability, sustainability, and optimization in India as core design constraints. The discussion addresses what should be built nationally, what collaboration can unlock, and where geopolitical frictions may arise globally.

This session will gather policymakers and AI practitioners from India and Africa to discuss accessibility of public data, local language LLM training and development requirements, and sustainable financing. The goal is to recommend a governance framework for making public broadcasting data available for public AI research securely. The discussion will focus on regulatory frameworks, practical data use for local language AI, and sustainable funding.

This roundtable convenes government, industry, legal, and diplomatic leaders to translate responsible AI principles into enforceable institutional guardrails for India and the Global South. Participants will examine real-world deployment failures, identify binding constraints in enforcement, audit bandwidth, and procurement, and develop minimum viable safeguards for high-adoption, low-capacity settings. Outputs include an Institutional Safety Case Standard and Red Teaming Checklist. The session bridges policy intent with ground-level implementation realities.

A rapid pitch by an exceptional AI startup, selected for its innovation and impact

Artificial Intelligence (AI) promises to transform healthcare delivery worldwide, improving diagnostics, access, and system efficiency. Yet biased datasets, exclusionary design choices, and uneven deployment risk reinforcing inequities and disproportionately harming already marginalised communities, including the elderly, persons with disabilities, and rural populations. This interdisciplinary panel will explore inclusive AI strategies, such as participatory design, representative data practices, and context-sensitive governance frameworks, to ensure that AI systems in healthcare are designed, developed, and deployed in ways that mitigate unintended harm. The focus is on building equitable digital health ecosystems that proactively address structural disparities rather than amplify them.

This session will feature emerging innovators showcasing early-stage ideas with the potential for significant real-world impact. It will also include a rapid pitch spotlighting an exceptional AI startup selected for its innovation and transformative promise.

Eros Innovation will unveil India’s First Large Cultural Models (LCMs) and a sovereign AI Creator Economy platform powered by Ethical and Cultural AI. The session will demonstrate how culturally intelligent AI can enable inclusive, citizen-scale creative and economic participation across India.

A rapid pitch by an exceptional AI startup, selected for its innovation and impact

A rapid pitch by an exceptional AI startup, selected for its innovation and impact

This session will feature insights into how the Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) enables access, mentorship, funding, and market linkages to accelerate women-led ventures. It will also include the announcement of the top 10 teams, recognizing high-potential founders driving innovation and impact.

What happens when 1,600 rural women pick up their smartphones and try AI for the first time in Hindi? This hands-on session brings together artisans, entrepreneurs, and community leaders from six states to experience how AI can help them in their daily work and livelihoods. With guided support from mentors, participants will use AI to explore new product designs, create marketing materials, navigate government schemes, translate documents, and draft applications — all on their own phones, in their own language. No prior tech experience needed.

This day-long research and policy symposium will convene senior policymakers, leading researchers, and practitioners to examine how AI can meaningfully improve public service delivery towards an AI ecosystem that maximises social good. Participants will explore evidence from rigorous impact evaluations of AI innovations applied across education, health, labour, agriculture, governance, and climate – highlighting what works, why it works, and what must change for transparent, fair, and responsible scale-up that delivers sustained real-world impact.

As India advances ambitious national AI strategies and positions itself as a global AI leader, the governance choices made today will have long-term consequences for children's rights, safety, dignity and development. Children are not merely 'users' of AI systems; they are deeply embedded within algorithmic ecosystems that mediate opportunities and risks.

MDB financing can play a critical role in covering the substantial upfront and ongoing costs of deploying AI for social good (AISG) to achieve the SDGs. However, sustainable and large-scale deployment will require coordinated multisectoral action and support from concessional funders. Additionally, MDBs must adapt their traditional transaction processes to better align with the fast pace of AI innovation and the rapidly evolving needs of social sectors.

This 55-minute workshop focuses on driving actionable insights that bridge the gap between research and reality in healthcare AI. The session brings together a multidisciplinary group to explore the complete execution flow in healthtech: from research insights to funding, from technical development to on-ground implementation, and the critical role of government support in creating an interconnected ecosystem.

An overview of the AI competitiveness landscape, examining why speed, coordination, and institutional capacity now define leadership. Senior industry and policy leaders will share brief perspectives on execution barriers, lessons from national strategies, and public-private alignment. The discussion is structured around three key pillars: innovation as a competitive signal, securing AI supply chains and infrastructure, and talent, energy, and government adoption as force multipliers.

This session explores AI as a catalyst for India's inclusive economic growth, highlighting its sectoral impact across industry, services, governance, agriculture, finance, healthcare, and MSMEs. It examines how AI enhances productivity, efficiency, and competitiveness while reducing leakages and enabling innovation. The discussion also outlines key challenges, policy linkages, and the evolving role of Chartered Accountants in AI governance, assurance, and value creation.